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If you have a garden this summer and need an idea that uses tomatoes, look no further! This soup is perfect for the cooling days and it pairs wonderfully with our Rosemary Artisan Sourdough Bread. It can even be frozen and thawed for a later meal—just remember to add the essential oils after it has been reheated.

Instructions:

In a soup pot, saute butter/oil, onions, and carrots for 3–4 minutes until softened. Add garlic and tomato paste; stir for another minute.

Pour in the bone broth, and add the tomatoes.

Reduce heat to medium low and allow the soup to simmer for 20–30 minutes.

Transfer soup to a blender (or use an immersion blender) and add honey, cream or avocado, and essential oils. Blend until smooth or as chunky as you like. You can also remove some of the tomatoes and chop them a little smaller and add them back to the soup after blending it. Add salt to taste.

Garnish with basil leaves and serve immediately.

Note: We like to make this in an electric pressure cooker. Follow the instructions above, but rather than simmering the soup, just secure the lid, seal the valve, and cook on high pressure (or use the soup setting) for 10 minutes then quickly release the pressure. Add honey and other ingredients before blending.

Do you have a pressure cooker? We love the way pressure cookers cook dishes faster and more “hands off.” Although cheesecake is often viewed as time consuming and a little tricky, cooking a cheesecake in the pressure cooker makes it fairly easy to get just right every time. The nice thing about using a pressure cooker is that it creates a built-in water bath that prevents cracking and gives the cheesecake a creamier texture.

We used an electric pressure cooker (Instant Pot®) and a 6″ × 3″ push pan. You can use a springform pan or even small (4–8 oz.) widemouthed mason jars for individual servings. If you have a stovetop pressure cooker, then heat it until you have low pressure and cook for 35 minutes; then remove from heat and allow the pressure to release naturally.

We know that not everyone has a pressure cooker, but they are a growing trend for a reason! If you don’t have a pressure cooker, just add 2 drops of citrus essential oil to your favorite cheesecake recipe, and bake it as normal. You’ll love the hint of citrus the oils add to the dish!

Sweet Cream Topping

Instructions:

Prepare a 6″ (15 cm) cheesecake pan by greasing it and lining the bottom with parchment paper.

Crust: To make the crust, place crackers and sugar in a blender, and pulse until small crumbs form.
Add the melted butter, and pulse until combined.

Firmly press the mixture in the bottom of the pan and up 1″ (2.5 cm) of the side of the pan. Place the pan in the freezer while you work on the filling.

Filling: For the filling, blend together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, vanilla extract, and essential oils in an electric stand mixer or with a sturdy hand mixer. Blend until the mixture is smooth.

Add the eggs and egg yolk one at a time, lightly mixing until just combined with each egg. Be careful not to overmix the eggs.

Pour the filling on top of the crust (make sure to cover the crust completely).

Pat the sides to get out as many air bubbles as possible. This can take a few minutes. You can also pop the air bubbles that come to the surface with a pointy knife or fork.

Cover the cheesecake with a paper towel, and then secure the paper towel with aluminum foil. Make sure none of the paper towel is visible (it can act as a wick and bring moisture to the surface of the cheesecake). Place the cheesecake in the middle of an aluminum sling (a long section of aluminum foil folded in thirds lengthwise).

Pour 1 1/2 cups (360 ml) of water into the pressure cooker, and place the trivet in the pot. Lift the cheesecake using the aluminum sling, and gently place it in the pressure cooker. Fold the sling over the cheesecake and secure the lid in place. Make sure the pressure valve is sealed.

Cook on high pressure for 35 minutes, and allow the pressure to release naturally for 18 minutes before releasing the remaining pressure.

After all the pressure has been released, gently lift the cheesecake out using the aluminum sling. Remove the foil and paper towel. Tilt the cheesecake pan, and dab off any liquid from the side of the pan. The center of the cheesecake should be a little jiggly, but not wet. Note: If it doesn’t look cooked enough (i.e., it looks too wet), return cheesecake to pressure cooker, and cook for 5 minutes with an 18-minute natural pressure release.

Sweet Cream Topping: Mix up the sweet cream topping by whisking the sour cream and sugar together until combined. Stir in a toothpick of tangerine essential oil if you want a little extra citrusy flavor. Spread the mixture on top of the cheesecake. Let cool on a wire rack for at least 1 hour.

Lightly cover, and chill in the refrigerator. The pan can be removed easily after an hour in the refrigerator. If you want to eat it by that point, no one will blame you! However, the texture will improve significantly if it can chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Enjoy!

Extra Ideas:

If you don’t have a cheesecake pan, you can use small mason jars for single servings—just divide the ingredients among each of the jars. For 4 oz. widemouthed jars, cook for 4 minutes with a 15-minute natural pressure release. For 8 oz. widemouthed jars, cook for 7 minutes with a 15-minute natural pressure release.

If you have a stovetop pressure cooker, heat it until you have low pressure, and cook for 35 minutes; then remove from heat, and allow the pressure to release naturally.

Try experimenting with different cookies for the crust. Chocolate sandwich cookies, Biscoff®, vanilla wafers, ginger snaps, or other crispy cookies can be used.

Have you considered using your high-quality essential oils in your culinary creations but aren’t really sure where to begin? With just a few basic tips and guidelines, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a pro.

Quality Counts

Not all essential oil brands deliver the same level of purity. Be sure to choose therapeutic-grade oils from a trusted source that have been organically grown and properly distilled. And when adding them to your recipes, make sure they contain a supplement label indicating that they are safe and appropriate to ingest.

Less Is More

Essential oils are extremely concentrated, so a little goes a long way. When deciding how much to use in a recipe, think in terms of drops or toothpick measurements. A drop or two is plenty to flavor most dishes. Some of the thinner oils tend to come out of the bottle quickly, so dripping it onto a spoon and stirring it into your recipe at the end will help you avoid using too much and overpowering your dish. Start with a drop, and add more as needed. You can also pour some oil into a small sample size bottle, which dispenses it in half-drop increments.The toothpick method is achieved by dipping a toothpick into your desired bottle of essential oil and then swishing it around in your recipe. This method is especially helpful when making food in small batches or when using some of the stronger-flavored oils such as basil, cassia, cinnamon, dill, marjoram, oregano, or thyme.

Timing Is Important

In addition to flavoring your food, essential oils offer a variety of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual benefits. In order to reap these benefits, it’s a good idea to add your oil at the end of the cooking process whenever possible. This will ensure that the heat from cooking doesn’t diminish any of these additional benefits.

Citrus oils are a great place to start using essential oils in your recipes, because they are very forgiving, unlike some of the stronger oils. It’s hard to go wrong with Wild Orange, for example, with its pleasant, fresh, and uplifting flavor.

Smoothies are one of my favorite ways to use essential oils and, after lots of trial and error, I have come to rely more on the citrus oils like bergamot, grapefruit, lemon, lime, and Wild Orange.

Making guacamole? Try adding 1 drop each of lime, black pepper, and cilantro.

Salad dressing also marries well with essential oils—particularly basil, oregano, and thyme. Remember to go easy on these, as they are on the stronger side.

Making a marinade? Add in some ginger and/or lemongrass oil.

When using turmeric in a recipe, such as the popular Ayurvedic beverage known as golden milk, add in 1 drop of black pepper, which works synergistically with turmeric to boost its effectiveness.

Nothing quite compares to the flavor and freshness of homemade non-dairy milk, made without any of the usual additives found in the store-bought varieties. Almond and brazil nut milk are favorites around our house, and adding cardamom or cinnamon essential oil delivers an exceptionally tasty result. Want to give it a try? Here’s a quick and easy recipe.

Instructions:

Place half of the water (2 cups or 1/2 liter) in a high-speed blender with the nuts, and blend well. Note: The nuts blend better when you start off with less water. Next, add in the remainder of the water, and blend again briefly.

Pour the mixture through a strainer or filter through a nut milk bag, reserving the nut meat for another recipe.

Put the milk back in the blender, add your cardamom, and blend again, just enough to mix. If you want to add a small amount of sweetener, this is a good time to do that.

Note: I rarely use sweetener and don’t really recommend it unless you plan to drink the milk plain. It’s not really necessary if it’s being added to a smoothie or enjoyed over a bowl of granola or some other recipe that already contains an element of sweetness.

About the Author

Madeline Eyer is a certified integrative nutrition health coach, a holistic health coach, and an essential oil enthusiast. She is the author of two books, Essential Green Smoothies and Essential Sauces, Dips & Dressings, bridging essential oils and healthy eating. Her joy and passion is in empowering families to enjoy the many benefits of eating a clean, nutrient-rich diet that is delicious and fun, with a special fondness for supporting families in feeding their children food that nourishes their growing bodies and minds.

Instructions:

Mix ingredients, except essential oils, together in a medium bowl.

Cook mixture over medium heat for 20 minutes or so until hot and bubbly. This can be done on the stovetop, in the oven, in a slow cooker, or wrapped in aluminum foil and grilled or roasted over an open fire.

Essential oil–flavored butter can be used for so many different things! Just think of the possibilities! Try a cinnamon-ginger-maple combination atop pumpkin pancakes. Or try lemon or orange butter for muffins or sweet breads. Maybe a cilantro-lime combination on your corn? Or sauté your vegetables in an Italian-flavored butter. Be daring and turn a sweet lavender butter into buttercream frosting to top your lemon cupcakes!

This recipe combines coconut oil and butter together for a healthier oil that has a higher smoke point than butter alone, so it really can be used on whatever you desire!

Whipped & Flavored Coconut Butter

Ingredients & Supplies:

1/2 cup (96 g) coconut oil

1/2 cup (113 g) butter, softened

Honey or maple syrup, to taste (for sweet butter)

1–3 drops essential oil (see suggestions below)

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Using a hand mixer, whisk until creamy. Note: if your coconut oil is too soft, you can whisk the ingredients together a little, then place in the fridge for 5–10 minutes before whisking it again.

Start with just a drop (or a toothpick dip) of your chosen essential oil, whisk, and taste before adding more.
You can combine essential oil flavors as desired, but keep adding to taste. It is easy to add too much essential oil (but you can always use that butter in cooking if it gets too strong for your taste).

Store butter on the counter in an airtight glass container (a mason jar works great!).

Try these delicious patties for a gourmet take on the average burger. You will love the flavor the essential oils add to these! We enjoyed these patties between toasted whole-wheat buns and topped with our Lemon Apple Slaw and Rosemary Cream Sauce (recipes below as well) along with a tomato slice, some avocado, and a little spinach! Mmmm . . . delicious! You’ll be licking your fingers for sure—and maybe even your plate!Continue reading →

Summertime means lots of fruit, but sometimes eating plain fruit can get boring. Try this quinoa fruit salad to change it up and add a little protein to your meal! Serve this as a side or as breakfast. You can eat it as is, or add a little yogurt—either way it tastes great!Continue reading →

Cooking with essential oils can add a ton of flavor to a simple dish and take it from ordinary to extraordinary! Roman and Corinna Barrus have taught many cooking classes over the years and have now made it simple for you to use their knowledge to hold your own essential oil cooking classes. We’ve invited Corinna to tell us a little more about their class materials. Make sure to give their Provence Salt a try—it is delectable!

Many of us are looking for ways to eat better, create delicious dishes for our family, and share the power of essential oils with others. Summer is a great time to dive into the world of cooking and preparing foods with essential oils, as there are so many delicious fruits and vegetables available this time of year. And cooking with essential oils is a great way to share them with others, as people love to eat and gather together over a meal.

When Roman and I got started 7 years ago sharing essential oils and teaching others, we soon discovered you could cook and prepare amazing foods with bold flavors, which saved time and money over conventional food preparation: buying a bushel of herbs, washing, drying, cutting—and usually a portion of it going rotten in the fridge. We discovered that a drop or less of essential oil added to food or to salts, olive oil, or honey was a quick and powerful way to add that same flavor at a fraction of the time and cost. We also discovered (the hard way) that a little goes a long way and that a whole drop of oregano oil can quickly ruin a dish.

Just like using essential oils for health and in the home requires some basic education, so does cooking with essential oils. So we created Eatplant for these 2 groups: those who want to learn how to cook with essential oils, and those who want to teach others about the amazing benefits of essential oils using a cooking class. Eatplant is the brainchild of Roman and his countless hours in the kitchen concocting delicious meals for his family and friends and our team events. He was getting asked to teach more cooking classes than he could handle, and we quickly realized that we needed to share this information by creating some simple tools to educate people on how to cook with essential oils and how to teach simple, fun, duplicatable classes. We have found that cooking with essential oils is a subject people really want to learn about. Let’s face it: We all love to eat, and the way to a man’s heart (woman’s too, especially if there is chocolate involved) is through the stomach. The Eatplant tear pad and invitation give you a simple way to invite and teach a “cooking with essential oils” class, complete with great recipes to allow you to make some essential oil–infused dishes.

Cooking with Essential Oils Tear Pad

“Let’s Cook with Essential Oils” Postcard Invitations

One of the recipes we share on the Cooking with Essential Oils Tear Pad and DVD 1 Cooking Class is Provence Salt. This recipe has become a favorite of thousands of people all across the world now. The Provence Salt was inspired by a traditional seasoning in French cuisine called the Bouquet Garni, which is used to season stocks, soups, meats, stews, and more. The traditional Bouquet Garni is made with fresh herbs usually consisting of rosemary, thyme, marjoram, basil, oregano, parsley, and sometimes others as well. The herbs are tied together by string and set in soups, stocks, and braises. The Provence Salt recipe replaces the need for the Bouquet Garni, saves time and money, and is more flavorful due to the potency of essential oils.

Instructions:

Mix ingredients together until thoroughly combined. This salt keeps for months in an airtight glass container and makes an amazing gift. Just sprinkle on food as you would salt for seasoning. This salt will soon become a family favorite!

“Cooking with Essential Oils: Intro Class” DVD

“Cooking with Essential Oils: Prep” DVD

We also saw that many people love to share but are not comfortable teaching classes, so we created the Eatplant DVD, which teaches the cooking class for you! It’s divided into sections that match the tear pad sections, so they can be used together, or you can use the DVD alone to learn or to teach others. The sections are Introduction, Let’s Talk about Essential Oils, How to Use Oils, Cooking with Oils, Eating Right, How to Get Essential Oils, and Suggested Essential Oil Cooking Sets. Everything is done in a simple and beautiful way to give you the basics and inspire you to develop your own creativity and signature style while creating delicious cuisine. For those who are ready to dive deeper into the world of cooking with essential oils and want more recipes, we created DVD 2, which has so many amazing recipes and dives deeper into cooking techniques to help you become an amazing home chef. We know how busy you are and how many things are on your plate, and we want to help simplify and demystify the world of cooking with essential oils.

About The Author

Corinna Barrus has been using essential oils for 25 years in her massage practice. It wasn’t until discovering medical-grade oils that she truly became passionate about the power of essential oils to create health and wellness physically, emotionally, and spiritually. She embraced a vision and mission to empower individuals, families, and healthcare professionals with the knowledge and tools to take healthcare into their own hands. She has seen firsthand the power of nature’s most potent medicine to help people heal and shift in ways both small and great.

After Corinna had been working her wellness business for 18 months, her husband, Roman, was able to retire from a 6-figure career to join Corinna and the mission to empower people to achieve greater health and abundance. Roman saw the potential of using essential oils in cuisine and took it from a hobby to an art and science! His love for cooking and essential oils has created a revolution in the kitchen. He and Corinna love sharing the health benefits of essential oils and leading a worldwide team to do the same.

Essential oils can add a lot of flavor to cooking, but sometimes even a drop is too much for the dish. These spice mixes are an easy way to add a hint of additional flavor to your cooking with the help of essential oils! You may even enjoy adding a little to your plate if you like to salt your food.

One important thing to remember when using these spices—use them like you would salt. If you want more of the essential oil flavor, add more oils to the salt mixture, or add a toothpick or a drop of essential oil to the dish after cooking it.

Another tip: Make sure to use a slightly coarse salt (kosher salt and Himalayan sea salt are recommended). Do not use table salt—it will make these taste too salty. Also avoid the really coarse salt if you plan on adding more to your dish just before eating (unless you happen to like biting into large chunks of salt full of essential oil flavor . . . which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

With Father’s Day just around the corner, try making these as a gift for the man who loves to cook!Continue reading →